When 12-year-old Marisa “Missy” Magel passed away suddenly while at summer
camp in rural Texas, it was from a disease her family never knew she had—brain
aneurysm disease. The disease claims 32,000 lives annually in the United
States—more than prostate cancer—partly because brain aneurysms are often
misdiagnosed as migraine headaches.

Now a $150,000 grant to the
Center for
Telehealth at Dartmouth-Hitchcock (D-H) from the
Missy Project, a foundation her family
started in 1999 following Missy’s death, will help brain aneurysm patients in
northern New England have rapid access to neurovascular specialists; access that
may have helped save Missy’s life.

“Telemedicine plays a crucial role in delivering health care in the right
place at the right time, especially in areas where there is no access to the
medical expertise that is needed,” says Sarah Pletcher, MD, director of the
Center for Telehealth and the Center for Rural Emergency Services and Trauma at
D-H. “Thanks to this grant from the Missy Project, we can use telemedicine
platforms to give children and adults real-time access to neurovascular
specialty care, in partnership with local providers and community hospitals in
our region and beyond.”

Pletcher and Robert J. Singer, MD, FACS, a board-certified neurological surgeon with specialty training in the diagnosis and
management of neurovascular diseases in children and adults, will oversee the
neurovascular telemedicine program. In addition to virtual aneurysm clinics, the
D-H project will include a 24/7 emergency department telemedicine acute consult
service for pediatric and adult patients with suspected subarachnoid hemorrhage
(which accounts for half of all hemorrhagic strokes), and customized educational
video content. Patient visits to the virtual aneurysm clinic will include
educational content and a real-time video visit with Singer, during which he
will discuss their treatment options and use telemedicine software to display
and discuss their CT scan images.

“Telemedicine is a great fit for many of our patients, especially those with
unruptured neurovascular lesions because a physical examination isn’t always
required. During the consultation I’m looking at imaging, explaining pathology,
and then giving an opinion as to what the next step is,” explains Singer, who is
the Medical Director of the JB Marshall Laboratory for Neurovascular
Therapeutics at Dartmouth.

In addition to providing more timely care, Singer notes that neurovascular
telemedicine is also more convenient for patients.

“Ordinarily, after getting a scan from their doctor, patients have to wait
weeks until they can get an appointment with me,” says Singer. “Many of them
then drive great distances for what is typically a 15-minute appointment, and
then they have to return at a later time if they need a diagnostic or treatment
procedure. That 15-minute appointment can easily be conducted via the virtual
aneurysm clinic. This reduces patient travel and the wait time for an
appointment, and also give patients a better visit.”

Mary Magel, the executive director of the Texas-based Missy Project and
mother of the late Missy Magel, says the nonprofit’s board voted unanimously to
fund the Center for Telehealth’s program. “To me, this is a brilliant program
and a great way to serve the community,” she says. “I think this will
dramatically cut the time from incident to treatment and I believe it’s going to
save a lot of lives.”